Innocence poster & wallpaper
Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Zoe Auclair, Berangere Haubruge, Lea Bridarolli, Marion Cotillard, Helene de Fougerolles ... see more see more... , Alison Lalieux , Olga Peytavi-Müller , Laisson Lalieux , Astrid Homme , Ana Palomo-Diaz , Alisson Lalieux

A strange institution prepares young girls for their future in a manner they don't truly understand in this surreal drama laced with fantasy. Iris (Zoe Auclair) is a six-year-old girl who arrives in a... read more read more... coffin (though alive and well) at a remote boarding school, where she and a handful of other girls are looked after by teachers Mademoiselle Eva (Marion Cotillard) and Mademoiselle Edith (Hélène de Fougerolles). Handpicked for the school and taken away from their families at a young age, each girl's age and place in the school's hierarchy is identified by the color of ribbon they wear in their hair (the oldest students, about 12, get purple ribbons), and they are forbidden to leave the campus grounds. Violating the rules is dealt with harshly, and their lessons focus on little besides ballet and biology. Each evening, the older girls are taken away to a different program they are not allowed to discuss, and the students get the impression that they are somehow being trained for future responsibilities, though what and why both remain a mystery. The first feature film from writer and director Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Innocence was adapted from a short story by Franz Wedekind. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Flixster Users

72% liked it

4,061 ratings

Critics

68% liked it

19 critics

R, 1 hr. 57 min.

Directed by: Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Release Date: September 10, 2004

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: November 13, 2007

Stats: 291 reviews

report incorrect info

Photos

None yet... Got one?

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (291)

  • ebs90
    June 24, 2008
    ebs90
    Innocence takes place in a mysterious boarding school by a lake, immersed in a haunting, lush forest. Inside, the girls receive biology and dance lessons, swim, and play. They have no idea why they've been sent there, and have no idea when they will be leaving. Mademoiselle Edith... read more and Mademoiselle Eva (Marion Cotillard) are in charge. With subtlety, in this blurry and dark environment, they teach the girls about life and music, perparing them for the reality of the outside world.

    Iris, Alice, and Bianca are the protagonists of this story (all excellent actresses), young girls surviving the long rite of passage that is their stay in the institute. Iris, the newcomer, adapts to the mysterious system of the school, and gets used to the idea that she may not be going out in a very long time. Alice struggles to become the best dancer in her class in order to be chosen by the headmistress, and be able to leave the Institute earlier. Bianca is on her final year, readying to leave the fairy-tale woods and return to the "real" world she's probably forgotten.

    The beauty of Innocence is that we as spectators realize that this is just a school! Nothing abnormal is going on, the girls are not being mistreated or abused; in fact, they live in an idyllic place with all commodities at their disposal. Therefore, why are the girls so afraid of it, why does verything seem so mysterious and forbidding? Lucile Hadzihalilovic tries to take us back to the time when we used to be amazed at everything, when all things were new to us, when there was still an element of magic or surprise to life. The truth is that this is a school that prepares potential ballerinas, but to the students it is the entire world, and so everything inside it has a special, larger-than-life significance.

    The film is meandering, contemplative, and above all intimate. The cinematography is breathtaking, and the slow pace of the plot is absolutely hypnotizing. In a way, there are many "clues" and symbols throughout the film, but it would be useless to try to explain them now: Innocence is very open to interpretation, and the waters definitely run deeper than what I was able to explain.

    The film is difficult to categorize, but there is some terror to it: the woods, so still and yet so overflowing with movement and hidden life, are metaphors of what the students are going through... that terrifying, confusing time when "girls become women", to say it lightly, that sort of "being on the edge" of full metamorphoses, something unknown (and therefore menacing) happening inside that can't be identified from outside.

    Hadzihalilovic is a brilliant symbolist. Her film plays like a poem, and it's full of images of gushing water and stillness and movement in nature. She closes the movie with one of the most intelligent and sensible scenes I have ever seen, in which everything has an implicit meaning, with bubbling water, laughter, and a not-so-little girl having the first taste of freedom, taking a vague first look at what the future has in store, at what she has been so thoroughly prepared for as far as her memory can go.
  • kiriyamakazou
    June 23, 2008
    kiriyamakazou
    In terms of style and execution this film is a rare delight. Hadzihalilovic creates such an intense and sinister atmosphere without the film ever being intense or sinister. It is in fact the film's almost naive innocence that plays with the viewers preconceptions forcing us to co... read morenfront a society of young girls hurtling towards adolescence. The film never even considers answering all our questions, but rather offers us visual stimuli to come to our own conclusions. Rather daring without ever being shocking this is a film of true art with similarities to The Wicker Man and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The child actors are incredible and capture the confusion and joy of being so young. Hypnotic and dreamlike this is a film to sit down and watch, making sure one gives it their undivided attention.
  • harrycaul
    November 11, 2007
    harrycaul
    This has to be one of the most intensely boring films I've ever seen. That said, it is oddly compulsive viewing. A metaphor equating the passage from innocence to sexual maturity with the life cycle of the butterfly, the film is, unfortunately, not quite as magical as it should b... read moree. Certain moments are stunning though, not least the fountain scene at the very end.
  • newvogueravyn
    October 21, 2007
    newvogueravyn
    Visually this film is stunning, and the woodland shots are very creepily done. However this film's narrative is very slow, making it perhaps better for study or 'serious viewing' than as a way to while away a few hours. I would also reccommend watching it alone where possible, as... read more you may well be tempted to talk over it if there are others there (I watched it with a friend who also really wanted to see it, and yet that happened to us).
  • guttersnipe28
    December 2, 2006
    guttersnipe28
    Very difficult to get a handle on. Innocence is an intimate French drama concerning the endangerment of children at a young girl's boarding school. Various rules are in force, heighteneing the sense of preciousness in the pre-teens' lives.
    Marion Cotillard is the only 'name' act... read moreress, having a small part as their soft-touch ballet teacher, working in opposition to the more matriarchal head of the house.
    Though there is visual style to burn, many of the images simply make little sense, and thus the threat (the crux of the story) is diminished by only existing in an absurdist fashion. For example, the girls are brought in individually in adult-sized coffins. This makes for some gorgeous cinematography, but also an empty metaphor. Later there is a scene punctuated by extreme close-ups of a girl playing enthusiastically on a swing. As predicted, she falls off, and the others rally round, but she seems to be a-OK. Move to the next scene. The only time said Innocence seems to be really threatened is in the film's final scene, where the (near-teenage) students play in a water fountain with various older boys, an adept depiction of young libido.
    Overall, pretty but perhaps a little hollow.
  • fb1144932598
    May 14, 2012
    fb1144932598
    Haunting would be a good word to describe this film, written and directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, and based on a short story by Frank Wedekind. If it's answers you want, this is not your film. But, if you enjoy pondering the questions, plop yourself down and give this one a wat... read morech. A group of young girls are sequestered in a strange, isolated boarding school where they are instructed in dance and science and generally left to amuse themselves. There is a definite air of mystery that pervades, and the filmmaker does little to alleviate a sense of dread that one feels as one watches this. Is there something nefarious going on behind the scenes? Are these girls being cultivated for some white slaver scenario? Or is everything as idyllic as it seems on the surface. Marion Cotillard and Helene de Fougerolles play the enigmatic teachers, but it is a bevy of young child actors that make this the fascinating watch that it is. Of particular interest were Zoe Auclair, as the newcomer, Iris; Lea Bridarolli, as the rebel, Alice; and Berangere Haubruge, as the eldest, Bianca. The major action, such as it is, revolves around these three characters and their interactions with each other and with the rest of the girls. Filmed on location, using available light, the film is saturated with vivid colors that pop on the screen against the white uniforms that the girls wear. The soundtrack makes extensive use of ambient sounds, evoking the natural world, with occasional bits of classical recordings during the dance scenes. Watching the interviews with the director afterward, one finds that the film was purposely ambiguous. We are not meant to be able to "figure it out". But it certainly does challenge one's thinking and may even reveal flaws in one's own character, as one tries to fill in the intentional blanks. In French, with English subtitles.
  • gator681
    December 19, 2008
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]"Innocence" starts with a group of girls letting Iris(Zoe Auclair) out of a coffin. Any movie that starts off with its strangest moment is going to be at an advantage and this movie about a girls school in the middle of a forest is no exception.(Reversing "Th... read moree Day I Became a Woman," there are no boys to be seen. Maybe they are on the other side of the wall?) Each of the girls is assigned a different colored ribbon depending on age. Iris, the youngest, gets a red ribbon while Bianca(Berangere Haubruge), the oldest, gets a violet ribbon and is about to move on. Possessing a blue ribbon, Alice(Lea Bridarolli) is impatient to get out of there and hopes to impress the headmistress(Corinne Marchand) when she pays her annual visit with what she learns in dance class taught by Mademoiselle Eva(Marion Cotillard). The only other class is taught by Mademoiselle Edith(Helene de Fougerolles) who instructs the girls on butterflies and menstruation. What gives the movie a decided creepiness is the combination of dancing and butterflies, as the girls are starting to be watched as they emerge into womanhood.[/font]
  • jimbotender
    June 26, 2010
    jimbotender
    A stroll in the woods.Alternative title: how to face your demons,obey the unknown rules and express your gratitude by shutting up your pre-teen smile.Sorry,did I say shut up?To think it's a creepy achievement of elaborate shots and mysterioso atmosphere would be little.Arguably,a... read more controversial subject carefully placed and a cathartic finale.
  • spaulsson
    June 18, 2009
    spaulsson
    The use of subtle clues, metaphors and photography as the main story teller makes "Innocence" a confusing and often frustrating experience, where much is left for viewer interpretation. However, Hadzihalilovic manages to create a pretty intense and ominous atmosphere, with help f... read morerom talented child actresses and a beautiful imagery. If I had watched it when I was in a thinking-mood I would probably found it more engaging, but since I were unable to enjoy this film my grade stays low.
  • LittleMissBloodAndGuts
    June 1, 2011
    LittleMissBloodAndGuts
    Completely surreal and unusual, this is is a movie that fits in with a some kind of cross between a David Lynch movie and Alice In Wnderland.

View All Innocence Reviews

Critic Reviews

Dennis Harvey
April 14, 2006
Dennis Harvey, Variety

Withholding basic expository material, and unpredictably restless in its focus, Innocence both rivets and challenges emotional engagement. Full Review

Michael Wilmington
December 15, 2005
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

Innocence is full of charm and strangeness -- and a sense that childhood is a place of incredible terrors and fleeting joys, of rapt innocence and fatal experience. Full Review

Andrew Sarris
November 16, 2005
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer

I can't recommend this film to my readers, because I don't happen to trust its motives. Full Review

Michael Atkinson
October 24, 2005
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

Innocence is not merely the year's best first film, but one of the great statements on the politics of being 'tween. Full Review

V.A. Musetto
October 21, 2005
V.A. Musetto, New York Post

One of the oddest, most perplexing -- and delightful -- films to come along this year.

Elizabeth Weitzman
October 21, 2005
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

A visually lush and eerily enigmatic parable of female sexuality, Lucile Hadzihalilovic's ominous fairy tale raises questions you'll be wondering about for days. Full Review

Manohla Dargis
October 20, 2005
Manohla Dargis, New York Times

The line between cinematic art and exploitation has rarely seemed finer and nervier, at least in recent memory, than in the French film Innocence. Full Review

Gene Seymour
October 20, 2005
Gene Seymour, Newsday

What you feel at the end is nostalgia; not just for your childhood curiosity, but for a time when movies boldly allowed suggestion and shadow to control their momentum. Full Review

Anton Bitel
January 7, 2010
Anton Bitel, Eye for Film

allegorises the innocent joys, confused anxieties and newly awakening impulses of pre-pubescence, where the only certainty is that the innocence of the title, like the film itself, must eventually com... Full Review

Tom Keogh
April 14, 2006
Tom Keogh, Seattle Times

Hadzihalilovic has arrived as a director to reckon with. Full Review

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Cast

More Like This

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • The Company of Wolves
    The Company of Wolves (100%)
  • Surviving Crooked Lake (Portage)
    Surviving Crooked Lake (Portage) (100%)
  • Naissance des Pieuvres (Water Lilies)
    Naissance des Pieuvres (Water Lilies) (100%)

More Movies like Innocence

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Innocence : Watch Free on TV

Innocence Trivia

  • Which movie had the tagline: "Innocence is what he knows. Beauty is what she sees"?  Answer »
  • Which actress played in the movie "Echoes Of Innocence"?   Answer »
  • In which movie a successful lawyer has an online friend that then happens to be a prison escapee claiming her innocence and wanting his help to clear her name?  Answer »
  • Who directed "Boxcar Bertha", "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", "New York, New York", "Kundun", "The Last Waltz" and "The Age of Innocence"?  Answer »
More Innocence Trivia

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for Innocence. Want to create one?

Video Clips

Upload a Video |

All Innocence Videos

Meet Other Fans

Add Innocence to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?